Lightspeed Magazine, June 2015

My 6 highlights

• Then we came to Utah and western Colorado, where the charcoal-gray skeletons of trees dusted with decomposing leaves looked like a special effect rendered in grayscale under a shockingly blue sky. We were used to silent highways, but through these graveyards the bus’s quiet engine felt both respectful and resigned.

• Overcooked chicken breast had the taste and consistency of soft wood.

• aging hippies polished by their long academic careers into a reluctant kind of respectability;

• The train rattles underground, all stale air and musty seats. The people studiously look aside, giving each other the safety of not noticing, bubbles of imaginary emptiness in the crowd.

• Jake and Tyler had gone from one basement filled with people to another basement filled with people.

• They’d talk about their day, Harry would drink one glass of red, and there’d be a few hours in their own universe, two stars rotating round each other, exchanging warmth.